1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the disclosure relate in general to the field of computers and similar technologies, and in particular to software utilized in this field. Still more particularly, it relates to managing the sending of electronic mail messages and responding to requests for related information.
2. Description of the Related Art
Electronic mail (email) has become a fast, reliable, and easy-to-use method of communication. The growing popularity of email has led to an increase in the volume of email messages, some of which are the result of messages sent indiscriminately to a group list comprising a large of recipients. In some cases, the message may be irrelevant to the recipient. In other cases, the message may contain a mixture of information, some irrelevant and some not, with the result that the recipient is required to peruse the entire message to identify the information that is relevant to them. This issue is commonly addressed in large organizations by having the originator of an email message first send the message to a smaller group of direct recipients. Each of the direct recipients can then make a determination whether to forward the original message, and if so, to whom. Furthermore, the original message may be edited to remove irrelevant content and comments and other information may be added to make the message more relevant to the next recipient. In turn, the indirect recipients of the forwarded message can likewise decide whether to further forward the original message, along with additional comments and edits, to other indirect recipients. This hierarchical approach to email message distribution can help reduce the volume of email messages while increasing the likelihood that the forwarded message content will be relevant to each of its recipients.
However, this approach does not lend itself well to distribution of updates, revisions, or follow-on information as the message originator has no knowledge of who indirectly received the original email. As a result, the originator must rely on the same intermediaries that forwarded the original message to likewise forward any related messages or information. This can prove problematic if the intermediary is unavailable, fails to forward the related information, or cannot remember which indirect recipients received the original forwarded message. Similarly, indirect recipients often have to rely on the same intermediaries to request additional or related information, as the originator's email address may have been removed from the forwarded message. As a result, delays are incurred in receiving the information, and in some cases, the information is never received at all.
Regardless of whether requests for related information are made by intermediaries or indirect recipients, the requests are typically received by the originator in a piecemeal fashion. Responding to these individual requests can be cumbersome, time consuming and inefficient. It would be advantageous if requests for related information could be made directly from the indirect recipient to the message originator, bypassing any intermediaries, even if the originator's email address was unavailable. It would be similarly advantageous if the email addresses of all recipients requesting the same related information were automatically appended to a list that was linked to the original message. Such a linked list would facilitate the message originator in responding to requests. However, these capabilities do not currently exist.